When Natascha Kampusch was last seen on her way to school in a run-down housing estate on the outskirts of Vienna in 1998, she was a four-foot-nine 10-year-old with light brown hair and blue eyes squinting behind blue and yellow glasses.But now the focus of Austria's most enduring child abduction mystery appears to have emerged as a pale and shaken 18-year-old after years of captivity in the cellar of a house less than 10 miles from where she disappeared. Local media reports claim she was held captive by a man named as Wolfgang Priklopil, a communications technician who committed suicide last night by throwing himself in front of a train while on the run from the police.The discovery has stunned the nation, and left Ms Kampusch's father, Ludwig, choking back disbelief. "I really hope this is really true," he said on Austrian television. "I'm betting God this has really happened."... http://www.guardian.co.uk

Eight people, including a child, have been killed in a raid by US-led forces in eastern Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan officials say. The coalition forces said the seven men killed in the raid in Kunar province were suspected al-Qaeda members. But local people told the BBC that men were tribal elders who had gathered to resolve a local dispute. Hundreds of people have died this year in Afghanistan's worst bloodshed since the fall of the Taleban five years ago. The US-led coalition forces said that they raided a house and killed seven suspected al-Qaeda "facilitators" near the village of Asmar in Kunar on Thursday morning. "Afghan and coalition forces came under direct fire when approaching the compound and defended themselves with return fire," a US military statement said. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5280726.stm

A survey has found that surgical instruments still have the potential to harbour CJD even after sterilisation. Edinburgh University found every instrument they tested was contaminated with enough protein residue to pose a potential infection risk. The researchers tested instruments taken at random from five NHS hospital trust sterile service departments. The study, financed by the Department of Health, appears in the Journal of Hospital Infection. CJD, a degenerative and fatal brain disease, is thought to be caused by mutated proteins called prions. These twisted proteins are known to be able to cling to the surface of surgical instruments, and are remarkably difficult to remove by standard decontamination processes, which involve the use of detergents and super-heating. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5281100.stm

A Brazilian policeman has been given a 543-year jail sentence for a March 2005 shooting spree that left 29 people dead in poor suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. Carlos Jorge Carvalho, who pleaded not guilty and says he will appeal, is the first of five officers to stand trial over the so-called Baixada massacre. The five are accused of driving through the area shooting people for two hours. The sentence is one of the harshest in recent years against a police officer convicted of a violent crime. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5280892.stm

A congressional report yesterday warned that the US was facing "significant gaps" in its intelligence on Iran that could be as serious as the shortcomings in its prewar knowledge about Iraq, leaving Washington ill-prepared to assess Tehran's military capabilities. The warning came as the Bush administration struggled to hold together an international coalition to force Iran to give up its nuclear programme. On Tuesday, Iran rejected a UN security council ultimatum to give up uranium enrichment by the end of this month, responding instead with a 21-page proposal for "serious talks". US diplomats said yesterday they were consulting their European allies on how to treat the proposal, in the face of Russian and Chinese reluctance to impose strong sanctions. "We acknowledge that Iran considers its response as a serious offer, and we will review it," state department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said in a statement. "The response, however, falls short of the conditions set by ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1857034,00.html

Zanzibar's government has banned the import of bananas from the Tanzanian mainland to the islands, in a move aimed at controlling diseases. The island authorities says an outbreak of a disease called banana bacterial wilt on the mainland could destroy Zanzibar's own banana crop. The disease can cause up to 90% crop losses. The banana import ban is to continue indefinitely. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5282196.stm